It's far too easy to categorize the beating of Matthew Owens in Mobile as payback for the highly publicized shooting of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla. But to do so would be premature and irresponsible.

Mobile Mayor Sam Jones took an appropriate tone this week, cautioning the public to avoid jumping to conclusions and to wait for further progress in the investigation. He also pledged that the people responsible would be arrested and prosecuted.

As of Wednesday, one person had been arrested.

Sticking to the facts of the case can tamp down assumptions that a crime involving blacks and whites must necessarily be a crime caused by race. We just don’t know enough yet — despite rumors of racial slurs — to make that leap.

It’s far more likely that tensions in the neighborhood had been building for some time. Jail records show that Mr. Owens had been involved in three violent confrontations since 2009. On Saturday, a man who had let Mr. Owens stay with him said his boarder had been extremely angry with some children playing in the street, and that he was “in a rage.”

Does that mean that Mr. Owens deserved the severe beating he got that evening? Of course not. No human being should be treated that brutally, regardless of motive.

Indeed, witnesses were scared and sickened at the sight of 15 to 20 people cornering the man on a porch and beating him so badly that he remained in critical condition Wednesday. The incident, observers said, involved teens and adults, males and females, even women in dresses “like they were going to church.” The weapons were said to be bamboo torches, a paint can and a plastic chair, which was broken and bloody afterward.

Now it’s incumbent upon neighbors and witnesses to come forward and share the details of the assault with police. That way, all of the participants can be identified and brought to justice.

On the Internet and within the community, there are going to be people who connect the beating with the Martin case. Others will liken it to road rage, in which a small infraction escalates into violence. But neither can be proven yet.

For now, the best way to describe the assault on Matthew Owens is to call it what it is — a crime, plain and simple.